Mirra Andreeva has already come a long way from the heart of Siberia, but on Saturday, she fulfilled her “dream”, aged just 19, when she beat Maja Chwalinska in the French Open women’s final.
She started playing tennis with her older sister Erika, also now a professional player, in Krasnoyarsk, some 4,000 kilometres east of Moscow.
“I’ve been watching Roland Garros on TV since I was very, very young, so it’s also a big dream of mine to win this tournament, and I honestly cannot believe that I’m holding this trophy right now,” Andreeva said after her final win at Roland Garros.
The current world number eight was just 16 when she made her Grand Slam debut in Paris in 2023, already under big expectations.
READ ALSO: Andreeva Wins Maiden Grand Slam Title At French Open
She had become the first player to win multiple W60 titles on the ITF circuit before the age of 16.
Andreeva lived up to the hype, reaching the French Open third round and then the Wimbledon last 16.
The Russian took another huge step forward by reaching the Roland Garros semi-finals in 2024 but lost to Jasmine Paolini.
Two WTA 1000 titles followed early in 2025 in Dubai and at Indian Wells, the latter with a statement comeback victory over Aryna Sabalenka in the final.
A quarter-final defeat by French wildcard Lois Boisson at Roland Garros last year would have been a painful loss to take, as she struggled to deal with a partisan home crowd.
But Andreeva says that she feels she is now coping better with the pressure of playing on the sport’s biggest stages.
“I definitely feel more experienced compared to last year,” Andreeva said.
“Before I was nervous. Now, I’m also nervous when I play matches like this or when I’m up in the score and I’m serving and the opponent breaks me.
“Then, before, I was thinking that, ‘Oh, my God, if I lost my serve, it’s like the end of the world’.
“Now I feel like, if she broke me, well, so what? I will try to break her back.
“I have been trying to work on me being more calm, more positive.”
She said she has also learned to rely on her team, led by Conchita Martinez, a Wimbledon winner in 1994 and French Open finalist in 2000.
